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2011年10月 月次レポート（楊殿閣 アメリカ）
Location: Columbia University
Time: October, 2011
Name: Denka Yanagi
ITP Monthly Report
I arrived in New York on October 8th, and stayed in a hotel for the first couple of days. On October 11th, I moved to my guest house which is located in East Harem of Manhattan. The first time I went to Columbia University was on October 12, and I met some faculty who had helped me to arrange my visiting scholar program. Professor Guobin Yang, my supervisor, gave me advice about my schedule and Columbia University's resources. My objectives of this program include literature review, development academic knowledge, and reorganizing theoretical approach. To achieve these aims, it is important to improve my understanding across academic fields. I contacted some professors who are in various departments or colleges of Columbia University in order to participate in their courses.
I am mainly taking three courses this semester: Contemporary Chinese Culture & Society, International & Comparative Education, and Human Right Skills & Advocacy. First, the "Contemporary Chinese Culture & Society" course covers the main areas of Chinese life after the open market policy (in 1978) - economy, politics, society, religion, media, and culture. The aim of this course is to analyze the various forms of inequality (class, gender, ethnicity, etc.), because inequality is an inseparable part of China's economic success story. We also study the agents and dynamics of social change by analyzing the emergence of new civic forms and activism in this class. Through sociological approaches, it examines how social structures and institutions influence individual lives and vice-versa. Second, the "International & Comparative Educational" course overviews methods, major concepts, debates, and current trends in the field of comparative and international education. This class studies examples from the broad range of research methodologies and disciplinary perspectives represented in the field of comparative 
education. In this course, we also discuss major institutions in international educational development, comparing their approaches after the Second World War to the promotion of education for development, such as World Bank, UNICCO, and UNICEF. Last, the "Human Right Skills & Advocacy" course is designed to develop practical advocacy skills for protecting and promoting human rights. This class focuses on development of advocacy strategy concerning human rights issue and appropriate methods. Through some case studies of human right in current issue, I have gradually become familiar with a variety of tools to use to analyze human rights.
Since I arrived at Columbia, the semester had already started, so I was behind the schedule and could not study from the very beginning of each class. This disadvantage caused a big challenge for me to catch up with my courses. However, I have made friends in my classes who are helping me to study here.